Down and Out in Los Angeles and Berlin

The Sociospatial Exclusion of Homeless People

Jurgen von Mahs

Publication Year: 2013

Los Angeles, California, and Berlin, Germany, have been dubbed &quot;homeless capitals&quot; for having the largest homeless populations of their respective countries. In Down and Out in Los Angeles and Berlin, J&uuml;rgen von Mahs provides an illuminating comparative analysis of the impact of social welfare policy on homelessness in these cities. He addresses the opportunity of people to overcome--or &quot;exit&quot;--homelessness and shows how Berlin, with its considerable social and economic investment for assisting its homeless has been as unsuccessful as Los Angeles.

Drawing on fascinating ethnographic insights, von Mahs shows how homeless people in both cities face sociospatial exclusion-legal displacement for criminal activities, poor shelters in impoverished neighborhoods, as well as market barriers that restrict reintegration. Providing a necessary wake-up call, Down and Out in Los Angeles and Berlin addresses the critical public policy issues that can produce effective services to improve homeless people's chances for a lasting exit.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Preface

At the time, I had no idea that a bright Saturday morning in October 1993
in Los Angeles would forever change the course of my life. A Fulbright
student from Germany studying at the University of Southern California
(USC), I was taking a course on...

Acknowledgments

Considering that my research project and the attempt to write this story unfolded over the better part of fifteen years, many people were directly or indirectly involved in the research and the making of this book, and they This book and the work that went into it would not have been possible...

Commonly Used Abbreviation

1. Different Welfare Regimes, Similar Outcomes? The Impact of Public Policy on Homeless People’s Exit Chances in Berlin and Los Angeles

Homelessness is a complex societal condition that has proliferated over the
past three decades in most industrialized nation-states of the global north.
Moreover, nations’ homeless populations have become increasingly diverse,
more closely reflecting the poverty...

Having provided a cursory overview of the different contexts of homelessness
in Germany and the United States and highlighted some of the weaknesses
in our contemporary understanding of the impact of policy on
homeless people’s lives...

3. Not Allowed: Legal Exclusion, Human Rights, and Global Capital

Perhaps the most pressing need a homeless person has is to generate income
to ensure his or her basic survival. Income, however derived, is an important
component of stabilizing homeless people’s lives en route to, ideally,
overcoming...

4. Not Wanted: Containment, Warehousing, and Service Exclusion

If, as demonstrated in the previous chapter, homeless people and some of their
survival strategies are deliberately excluded from the commercial city center,
what spaces remain for them? Do homeless people in Berlin, like their peers
in Los Angeles...

5. Not Needed: Market Exclusion, Exit Strategies, and the Specter of Neoliberalism

It is not difficult to appreciate that the previously discussed forms of legal and
service exclusion had an adverse impact on the respondents’ immediate life circumstances
and thus inevitable consequences for their ability to accomplish
their long-term goals of securing...

Postscript

I often think back to the sunny Saturday morning in October 1993 when I first
ventured into Skid Row with my classmates. In fact, to this day I use a virtual
field trip to downtown Los Angeles in some of my classes, roughly following
the path Professor Jennifer...

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